Moses received the written torah and the oral torah from God on Mount Sinai. This included the Ten Commandments, the Chumash, the Mishnah, Prophets and Writings, and the Talmud.

God’s role in determining halacha is significant in the sense that all Torah was already presented and given by God. Even though all teachings were presented to Moses on Sinai, Torah keeps growing and developing, but the ideas all originate from the moment that God gave the Written and Oral Torah to Moses. The authority of the Oral and Written Torah are the same. In this interpretation, God already presents all of the information that is needed for humans to follow the halacha and develop it, along with living holy lives.

This picture represents the powerful and influential moment when Moses received both the Written and Oral Torah from God. The information that Moses received on Mount Sinai sets up the foundation of all Jewish learning and thought to follow afterwards. It is astounding how one human can receive all of the knowledge of Judaism including the Oral Torah. It demonstrates how knowledge is a source of power which also goes to show that if Moses never received the written and oral torah from God, the Jewish people would not have the foundation to their livelihood, which enabled them to expand and develop Torah.

This parable is about a human king who provides two servants with wheat and flax, but no instruction. The smart or sensible servant wove the flax into a cloth and turned the wheat into bread, while the foolish servant brought the ingredients back untouched.

God depends on human beings to act like the “smart servant” and use resources efficiently. This means that when humans are given raw materials from God, they should decide to turn into something useful. Humans have an obligation to keep developing the Written Torah, which is the “wheat and flax” in order to disclose the Oral Torah, the “bread and cloth.” The Oral Torah is what is gained from following God’s commandments. By interpreting the Written Torah into the Oral Torah, we create something that is valuable to our livelihood or others around us.

This picture represents the main theme of this parable because the words in this picture state, “The lazy cook’s Challah in a bag.” This corresponds perfectly with the parable because the picture is of dry, raw ingredients in a plastic bag, which when combined together, form Challah. If the bag of dry ingredients were formed into a Challah, it would become useful and valuable during Shabbat and for food purposes, but when the raw ingredients are left untouched, it is not useful. This relates to the comparison of the Written and Oral Torah because the raw ingredients are very literal and concrete, like the Written Torah, but by transforming it into something that relates to our interests, like challah, we add more value to the ingredients, which is the Oral Torah.

Once the Israelites received the Torah from Moses at the bottom of Mount Sinai, God forced them to accept the Torah, or else they would die.

Rav Avdimi bar Chama bar Chasa believed that the text was saying that humans need to accept the Torah into their lives, or else they would die. Rav Acha bar Ya’akov interprets this as the idea that humans are coerced into following the Torah, which causes them to have an extrinsic motivation to protect their livelihood. He concludes that the people will protest the Torah, not follow it, and turn their backs against God. However, Rava refutes this point by saying that there will not be a protest because even though the Torah was initially forced upon them, they will eventually learn to accept it and fulfill its commandments, which is an intrinsic motivation.

Like every classroom, students have different motivations. Some are motivated to learn because they enjoy critical thinking and learning new things, while others solely motivation when they do their homework is to not be chastised by their parents or teachers. The latter form has an intrinsic motivation, which is to gain knowledge because it gives them personal satisfaction, while the second type is extrinsic because they are doing something because they feel coerced. This directly relates to the text because Rav Avdimi believed that people should be forced to follow the Torah. However, he goes on to add that although extrinsic motivations may occur at first, they will ultimately accept the Torah intrinsically, just like students who feel coerced at first to do their work will ultimately feel personal satisfaction once they do well.

The answer to halacha is not from the heavens. It is up to the rabbis to decide halacha based on a majority vote and if an individual disagrees, such as Rabbi Eliezer, he should be excommunicated.

In determining halacha, our role is not listen to a heavenly voice, but we must interpret it ourselves. God’s role was fulfilled by giving us the Torah, but we can not use the heavens as evidence for how to interpret it because that is up to us. Rabbis are supposed to rule out the most logical interpretation based on the circumstances, regardless of evidence from the heavens, just like Rabbi Jeremiah and Rabbi Joshua. Eliezer was excommunicated because he did not follow the majority and he was not doing his part as a human as he needed to interpret the halacha himself, without support from the heavens.

This picture represents one of the ideas of the text, which is majority rules. The majority of Rabbis decided on one decision without using support from heavens, but Eliezer was way off the “rule book” when he decided to use the heaven as a support for his argument. Therefore, his argument held less weight than the argument of the majority, hence the scale. The individual on the scale is also set aside from the others, as Eliezer was excommunicated from society for not following along with what the majority rules as the halacha.

Both the House of Hillel and the House of Shammai are correct, but the House of Hillel is more correct and thus was chosen to be the leaders of halacha.

In determining what is halachically correct, we know that it has to derive from the word of God and have God at the foundation of its reasoning. However, we also learn that multiple truths can coexist together because both the House of Hillel and House of Shammai have teachings which derive from the words of God. Even though both are correct, the difference between them is that the House of Hillel taught the House of Shammai teachings before their own, showing their humility and that they even considered that they could be wrong. Their willingness to to teach the House of Shammai’s teachings before their own demonstrates how they accept that there can be multiple truths and individuals have different preferences.

This image illustrates how sometimes there is no one right answer. Some argue whether toilet paper should sit under or over the roll. The truth is that both are right and individuals need to decide what is best for them. Some people may prefer the House of Hillel over the House of Shammai, but both are technically adequate. There are definitely ways to define one as better than the other, which is why Hillel is what we follow nowadays, but there is no answer that is set in stone for both of these situations.